hilt, upon the poison cup, is to judge and to condemn father, sons, sons of sons and even the law itself to a writhing state of perpetual darkness. Here we have chosen body and murdered spirit!
It is as if handless men fumble to mortar the crumbling walls at the Temple of The Falling Sword! Turn away from this evil task ; let it crumble, that you may truly rest upon the ponder of your heart's cripple and in time regrow the finger's of a brother's caress; a child's reach, a Son's grip upon Life.
But if you cannot or will not or shall not because your hands have been left offered in the Urn of Reluctance, your eyes come rolling behind you in the dust like blind toads, your ears do not open to the wind but are folded grotesque in the closed scar of all brands of truth, your legs toppled upon the twin hooves of the Herd, your will: the will of rats peeking, judgement you let roam as the fly flights from scents of carrion, frenzied for a burrow to lay down its tiny maggot of Righteousness, your mind a lizard tailless in its ever circle of consume in the fever of your glaring skull-bowl, your spirits, oh ye Sons of a Reaching Father, what are they?
What are they but pulped, bloodied things now pale to a pink of transparent so bled they are trailed behind by a strand of eternal homage; suffrage. An umbilical cord of religious worship. But do not confuse which of the twins is After Birth and which is the All Birth of the Son.Trailed through the wastelands of indecent Ruins.
Do not confuse which is the empty cup and which lies the stain of wanton spillage, of careless neglect. For if you revere these bodies of the law, go onto the desert thirst; offer to a man there a choice of empty cup and water thrown to the sand. You will have no doubt as to his thought of Treasure; just look upon the salt-like stain of his lips, the granular feast as he sucks upon the soul caked in dust.
But do not blink at the son of me, go upon thy Father with cups echoing of unharvest. Offer to him the 'justice' of bodied law; I tell you he would beg the spittle from your venomous throats, a drink sure to close his eyes final from such foulness cleaved from his own spirit's flesh.
At this the Beggar abruptly stopped and openly wept to the faces of three brothers. For he saw that in their faces, in their eyes, a tearing and convulsing, an ancient struggle so timeless in renewal as each new Man was birthed in such tiny cradles. That where Light and a Dignity of strong gentle Hand struggled so hugely, oh God, oh God, so titanic, so multitude was the breed of dark Things which scurried and laid a putrid mountain upon even a twitching of Remembrance. As if foul huge warts grew ravenous upon all living flesh, any movement simply birthed a renewal of suffocating quivers, the dark fester of columns reviling upon any sole inner voice that dared whisper for hope; an avalanche of reprisal.
He remembered before, so many times, how his own father's words would yield upon men's faces such tortures such inward hate.How the Beggar, even too some of the disciples, would flee their eyes from such a reminder howling of a world so strangely passionate than this physical slumber most believed as complete in its near frozen hold. How his father oblivious to all, so overzealed was his Will to conquer this Swarm, would foam his eyes, words sweeping unintelligible to the masses yet profoundly cutting to each single heart, his hands would pluck to some mad driven brain and cast out completely, utterly all Things of foul, of weight of decay.
For minutes, in the other worldly descent of peace surrounding such a Man removed of all corruption, all sin, all that is not a Man, a circle would form as if all others would recognize this not to be now of men but more, much more.
Minutes in a holy state, his father's eyes, the Man's eyes communicating in a Song of Language which remained as oblivious to the world as the hushed awe was oblivious to them.
He had asked his father what was spoken at those times. (for none of the disciples seemed to dare speak of it; except a couple perhaps later). His father had replied: "To remain of Faith, my little joy. I begged him remember, for if he could remember, retain as little as a seed, his Faith would dwarf the mountains gathering already at his stride."
Whether they remembered or not, he did not know. But in minutes, the Legions sprung again, their numbers bred from the urns and vessels surround; into the Lighted Man they sprung. And he was quickly lost. His face losing light as if a lamp sputtering, receding away without distance.
And the grief of his father pale, as he watched, would drive even a small Beggar's heart curling, weeping into a small dark cavern so far down himself. It would be hours, till nightfall, then finally, curled to his father's comfort and kiss; there he could let his tears sing long into such a night given onto mankind. He always felt that though his father did not speak, he was grateful to let a child weep for both of them, the Father and the son.
But he was not his father and could not 'pluck' a Man from amongst men. He could not save Man amongst men, the best he could offer was to be their Hands if they would only will so.
His damp palms settled to the table, as if they bore an imprint of a different face he wished kept turned from the world. His eyes gathered up the expressions of the brothers. The Legions slumbered, Light lay deep away, the reason and sanity of the everyday had surfaced and played slightly aghast to envision a brief passing of such pools of madness swimming eye to eye about the common table; a table only of moments ago had seemed a tilting, swirling. Plain where made the Ware of Destitution, of Manless victories. Having no faith in where they had been, they forgot their madness, only remembered the Beggar's. A Brotherhood of fear of revulsion, as if the dismembered shudder and point with bloody stubs at the disembowelled. Where the talk is not of the Lost but who has lost more than what an average of men then decrees decent.
Beggar: "Brothers, forgive me. My tongue has a serpent's look when I do not grasps it well above the tail. I make no strike amongst your souls. I am a man of nothing, carry nothing, own nothing. Therefore, I can offer nothing and in offering nothing, nothing will be repaid, or judged. For me the law is nothing, as I am nothing to the law.
You have not idle hands but restrained hands, this I see and make no judgement. They are bound to something.
But I bound to nothing. So if you must go to the Father and do nothing, then do nothing through me. Take me to your Father and with my heart, my will, my hands, together, all, his will shall be done. Yet nothing will be done by you but through my name.
Then you will be both clear of conscience for both law and First Law. For by the law you did nothing but by First Law something was done. Both the body and the spirit of father and sons is replete through the uphold of nothing in my hands.
Executioner: Are we to take you, Beggar, to our father that you may kill him?
Beggar: If that is the father's will, yes.
Doctor: But what of the law and us, correct me, Brother of the law if err is spoken but whether we bring a poisoned knife, a poisoned cup or a poisoned beggar to the father, will we not still be gathered as accomplice by the Law?
Lawyer: Most certainly, justice begs follow the means from end to end.
Beggar: Not quite true, sir. For the milkmaid of the goats that raised the baby goat, whose skin made a sheath whose knife was sold in the city, whose buyer stabbed his friend, she is not guilty of the cut, is she?
Lawyer: No, no, of course not. The goat skin could have made a thousand things or even a thousand sheaths none of which gave harbour a villain's knife.
Beggar: But, nonetheless, it was her act which remains part of the means.
Lawyer: But any act but hers would remain the same purpose. The random select absolves her guilt. Only when the act is directed to a certain end does guilt arise.
Beggar: Intent
Lawyer: Yes, yes, yes, what of it?
Beggar: Take me to your father. That is your intent. His intent will be whether I kill him or not, that is of nothing now to you, is it not?
Lawyer: No so simple, if his will is to not be killed, we are absolved; if it is to be killed, we become guilty. In the same way, if we placed him at a wall's edge, if he jumps, then we are guilty; not the wall.
Beggar: Lost, lost brothers. You can neither do your father's will by the ends, the means, the way, through nothing or something. To be so ungentle with hands held from a father's reach. And in not choosing, you have chosen. In the ungather you reap a more bitter harvest, that of your soul's famine. Yet what is asked of you is nothing. But, alas, through Nothing would be found Everything. Lost to those who clutch amongst Something.
Doctor: What means all this nothing, everything?
Beggar: Call the closed door: Something. Open it, and step through Nothing to the dwell of Everything. Yet the name of the latch I do not know. In that, a failure to fathers binds I as a brother too. I can only call the latch: Word. And in that I know only a little of Something; the weight of so little crushes my reach to a palmless hand; it slips away, Brothers, the Word always passes beyond. Through Nothing in my very soul.
Lawyer, with a confident lean back of his chair, (that slouch that radiates of a vulture's patient reward): Then this empty thing, with this then you too gawk Wordless stand to the father's question of Pain?
The Beggar answered in a voice like a foot scraped across long blown sand: Wordless, yes. As soundless a thing as a trembling hand where hope has seen the end of its day; As still as eyes which bear the repeat of walls, the eternal Thou
The Seven Days of Wander Page 63
